The Colonel

by Beau North

  “Richie, Richie, calm down. Breathe. Breathe.” Darcy’s voice was plaintive, soothing. It only agitated him more.

  “D—I can’t…what am I? What’s happened?”

  “I’ll tell you everything I know, but you need to breathe.” He could feel Darcy’s hands on his own, warming them.

  I still have hands. The thought calmed him a bit, and he was able to take a long, gasping breath at last. He was alive, and that’s what mattered. He’d kept his promise.

  “Am I moving my fingers?” he managed to ask after a few more breaths.

  “Yes, Richard, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Am I whole?” Nothing scared him quite so much as the deep, telling silence that followed.

  Was I ever?

  “The doctor’s coming, Richie. He’ll explain everything.”

  The doctor, a young and annoyingly handsome army doctor by the name of Wentworth, did indeed explain everything. Too much, really, but only after he was made to answer a barrage of inane questions like “what year is it?” and “who is president?” Then he was made to wiggle all his fingers and toes before the doctor broke the news to him.

  “You took a partial grenade blast to the side of your face, Colonel. The impact caused some intracranial edema, which was why you were unconscious. You have some surface lacerations, most superficial but some deeper, and there was also shrapnel damage here, in the lateral orbital wall”―the doctor touched his own face, where the cheekbone met the eye―“and what we call an open globe injury. Do you understand what that means?”

  “I’m guessing it has something to do with my eye.”

  The doctor nodded soberly. “Ordinarily, we can repair that surgically and you’d have at least partial vision. But in your case, the trauma was too severe.”

  Richard could remember the heat from the blast, a ringing in his ears, and little else.

  “I see,” he said, smiling weakly. “Or…maybe I don’t.”

  The doctor shook his head. “The first part is always the most difficult. We were able to put in a temporary prosthesis, like a plastic ball basically, that will keep the socket from drooping or sinking. You will need time to heal, about eight to twelve weeks in your case, due to some of the hairline fractures in the orbital bone, before you can be fitted with a permanent prosthesis.”

  “The one-eyed king in the land of the blind,” Richard said, feeling strangely giddy. Darcy looked sharply at him.

  “It’s all right,” the doctor assured him. “It’s a bit of a shock.”

  “I’m just leaving bits of myself all over the world now. D, maybe we should go to Russia or outer Mongolia. I can leave some toes, maybe an appendix.”

  The doctor stuck his head out the door and called to a nurse, who came and injected him with something that made him feel like he weighed no more than a bag of feathers. “Just a mild sedative, not even enough to put him to sleep,” he said.

  “When can he go home, Doctor?”

  “I imagine that’s up to the army. This is…a lot, I know, but the edema was the most troubling of all of his injuries. We’ll need to run some more tests to determine if there’s been any hidden, lasting damage.”

  “You mean besides losing an eye and the side of my face being turned to hamburger?” he snapped at the doctor, who grinned at him.

  “You’ve got some fight in you! That’s good. The swelling will go down, and you’ll have some fine scarring but nothing shocking. As far as your eye goes, you’re damned lucky the shrapnel didn’t go another half inch, or you’d be in the ground already. You’re a very lucky man.”

  “Don’t try to cheer me up, Doc. Save your bright sides and silver linings for someone who’ll believe them.”

  “Richard—” Darcy cautioned him. The doctor’s smile only widened.

  “It’s quite all right, Mr. Darcy. I’ve been told off worse by far more frightening people.”

  “Get out, both of you. I want a new doctor and a new cousin.”

  Both men seemed to find this funny, for some reason, but when the doctor left, Darcy sobered again.

  “Are you…are you all right?

  He shrugged. “Define all right.”

  “Lots of people lead normal, healthy lives after”—Darcy gestured to his face—“you know.”

  Richard snorted. “Your bedside manner could use work.”

  “Well, I left my more diplomatic half at home.”

  Both men sat in tense silence at the off-handed mention of Elizabeth.

  “She was worried sick about you, you know,” Darcy said, not meeting his eye. “Not just when we got word. She’s been worried sick about you since you left.”

  “D—”

  “I don’t need to know,” Darcy said, getting up and walking to the window. The view outside was obscured by a wire mesh screen. It was raining. “Whatever happened that night.”

  Now it was his turn to avoid his cousin’s gaze. “She didn’t tell you?”

  “She didn’t need to tell me anything. I know there’s a part of her that still feels some…loyalty to you.”

  Richard laughed, shaking his head. “You’ve got it all wrong, D. It’s you and only you. Nothing happened that night. A few words exchanged on the other side of a closed door.”

  Darcy narrowed his eyes. “I’m not sure I believe you.”

  Richard shrugged. “The fact that you were ready to think the worst doesn’t say much about me, but I would think you’d have more faith in your wife than that.”

  His cousin stalked away from the window. Richard thought for a moment that he was going to strike him where he lay in his hospital bed, but Darcy surprised him by leaning down and embracing him. Richard lay there in mute surprise until Darcy released him, sinking back into the chair beside Richard’s bed. He seemed lighter, younger, happier. He realized that Darcy had been carrying this suspicion in his heart in the eighteen months since Richard had last seen him, and at some point, that suspicion had solidified itself as fact in his mind.

  “You are ridiculous,” Richard grumbled.

  “No, I’m insecure. There’s a difference.”

  Richard scowled at his cousin. Even with the scruff of unshaven beard, the unkempt curls that stuck out haphazardly and the wrinkled clothes, Will Darcy still looked like a movie star.

  “Insecure,” Richard scoffed. “Since when?”

  “Since I married up.”

  “Can’t argue with that.” He felt tired all the sudden, hollowed out and brittle-thin. His head fell back against the pillow.

  “Wake me up when the war ends, will you?”

  Darcy’s voice was muted, as if coming from a long way away.

  “Sure thing, Richie.”

  January 2, 1953

  8167th Army Hospital, Tokyo

  Dear Eve,

  Forgive the strange penmanship. I’m not up to writing quite yet so I’m dictating to Darcy, who has been so good as to fly around the world to act as my secretary.

  First, allow me to wish you and your family a very happy New Year. I hope you’re blessed with every good thing in the coming year.

  Tomorrow the bandages come off, and I see what kind of horror I am dealing with. I joke, but in truth, I have no idea what to expect.

  One thing I know will ease your mind: I’ll be going home for good soon. This army thing just isn’t working out for me, I think.

  Love to Arthur and the girls.

  Until next time,

  Richard

  Post script: Between you and I, Mrs. Ward, you must allow me to tell you that I thank you from my heart for the friendship you’ve given my cousin. I know he thinks very highly of you and your family, and so must I.—Will Darcy

  “Are you ready?” The doctor smiled his annoyingly handsome smile. Richard wasn’t sure how to answer the question. He wasn’t sure he was ready to see the damage, but the need to know, the need to see was on the edges of his every thought. Go ahead and get it over with.

  “Sure, Doc. Let’s do this.”r />
  The doctor nodded and began the process of removing the bandages. Darcy stood propped up on the opposite wall, hands thrust in his pockets, watching all with worried eyes.

  The kiss of air on his skin was a strange feeling, a slick pleasure that carried the stinging pain.

  “Don’t touch,” the doctor warned as the lacerations in his flesh met with the cool air. “There were a few minor burns, and those are always more prone to infection.”

  Richard had to clasp his hands together, fingers intertwined and interlocked, to keep from touching the injuries. A nurse handed the doctor a small shaving mirror. Richard tried not to look at the red-spotted bandages as they were removed. His scalp felt cold.

  “Did you shave my hair?”

  “Part of it, but only for surgery and sutures. Your scalp wasn’t damaged, so your hair should grow back normally.”

  “Great,” Richard said dryly.

  The doctor held the mirror out to him. “Okay. Take a look.”

  His hand shook as he took the mirror. He held it up, vision swimming for a second as he adjusted to looking through one eye.

  “That will take some getting used to”―the doctor noticed his reaction.

  Richard looked at his face. The scalp was milky-pale where his head had been shaved. Beneath that, there was a pattern of fine cuts and scratches lacing the left side of his face from the hairline above his left eyebrow, down his temple, and across his ear and cheek. The burns were thick lines where the flesh was still angrily red and lumpy. The cuts had already begun to heal, most of them scabbed over, but the burns still looked fresh. His eyelid was festooned with black stitches. And even though he could feel what he called his Spaldeen, a strange foreign body in the socket, the emptiness, the slightly sagging eyelid was positively ghoulish.

  “Well this is a goddamned sight,” he said, feeling a little sick to his stomach.

  “It already looks much better,” the doctor tried to assure him. “The swelling has gone down. No signs of infection. All good signs. You were very lucky.”

  “They told me that the last time and that worked out just peachy.”

  “I’m sure your family would agree on both counts.” The doctor looked to Darcy for support.

  Darcy scowled and said, “Too damn close. Both times.”

  The doctor and the nurse left soon after, having more broken men to tend. They’d left the mirror.

  “How do you feel?” Darcy asked, not leaving his post against the wall.

  “Tender.”

  It was true. He could have been talking about the newly exposed flesh that felt like electricity or the strange hollow ache in his head where his eye used to be. What he really meant was the strange fragility of seeing this new version of himself. He was a different man now, born in battle and feeling as tender and alone as any newborn cleaved from the warmth and safety of what was familiar.

  “They think you can be released soon.”

  Richard nodded. Next to the bed, set in a velvet box, was the medal that Colonel Brandon had delivered personally, along with the news that he had been given an honorable discharge. Richard had put the box aside, not particularly interested in accolades.

  “Good. I’m ready to be anywhere else but here.”

  Darcy hesitated before crossing the room, sitting on the bed next to him.

  “Elizabeth and I think you should come live with us at Pemberley for a while.”

  Richard laughed. It hurt, but it felt wonderful too.

  “You’re full of shit, D.”

  “I am most certainly not.” Darcy seemed offended by the idea.

  “It’s okay,” Richard assured him. “Pemberley sounds like a wonderful place to recover, but I think I’d prefer to go back to Gramercy Park. Anne and Charlotte have honeymooned long enough.” He could tell Darcy was set to argue with him. “It’s also close to lots of good hospitals. Nowhere better to recover, I’ll bet.”

  This seemed to mollify his cousin somewhat. “I suppose that’s as good a reason as any.”

  Richard tried to take his hand, missed. Darcy reached out, putting his hand in Richard’s. He gave it a squeeze and released it. “Thank you, though, for the offer.”

  “Of course.”

  “I suppose it could be worse,” Richard said, peering back into the mirror.

  Darcy’s brow rose. “How’s that?”

  “I could look like you.”

  Darcy snickered. “You wish.”

  “Do me a favor, D. Go to that fancy hotel. Get a bath and shave. I can’t be seen with you looking the way you are right now.”

  “And leave this comfortable chair?”

  “I think your ass has worn a permanent groove in it.”

  “I’m actually thinking of taking it home with me, if only to spare another ass the same fate.”

  “This is an army hospital, D. They’re all the same.”

  Suddenly exhausted, his head fell back against the pillow. Darcy said something else, but Richard couldn’t catch it. He was already dreaming.

  20

  1 February, 1953

  Dear Richard,

  I’m so relieved to hear you’ve settled back in the States and that your recovery is going so well. I don’t think you should call Charlotte and Anne “mother hens,” though, as I’m sure they were as frightened as I was at the thought of losing you. Let them cluck and fuss over you. If I were there, I’d be clucking along with them.

  Love,

  Evie

  February 15, 1953

  Gramercy Park

  New York City

  Dear Eve,

  Richard balled up the paper and tossed it at the bin. He missed, of course.

  “Damn depth perception,” he muttered.

  “Feeling sorry for ourselves, are we?” Anne started picking up his many discarded attempts at writing.

  “No, just bitter I’ll never get to play for the Knicks.”

  “Funny. I think you’d play better than they do even with one eye gone.”

  “Hilarious, Annie. What do you want?”

  Anne sat on the edge of his desk, folding her arms across her chest.

  “I want to know if you’re ever planning to leave the house.”

  “Sure. I thought I’d just pop over to Atlantic City for a day or two.”

  “I mean it, Richard. You can sit here and waste all the paper in Manhattan if you like or you can take us out for lunch. Maybe you haven’t been able to write to Evie because you haven’t had anything to write about?”

  He sighed, touching the slick leather patch that covered the space where his eye used to be. “I just don’t like all the looks.”

  Anne put a hand on his shoulder; he covered her hand with his own.

  “Okay. Next time, Richie.”

  March 17, 1953

  Gramercy Park

  New York City

  Ding-dong.

  Richard looked up at the sound of the doorbell before returning to his book from the set of Dashiell Hammett books that had been a gift from Darcy. The Continental Op was helping Gabrielle Dain recover from a morphine addiction, something he was intimately familiar with.

  Ding-dong.

  “Is anybody going to get the door?” he called out irritably. The house was empty but for the ticking heartbeat of the clock on the mantelpiece.

  Ding-dong. Ding-dong.

  “Christ’s sake.” He put his book aside and roused himself off the sofa. “Make the old cripple do everything around here.”

  Ding-dong.

  “Coming! I’m coming,” he called out, adjusting his eyepatch. A few more days and he’d get his permanent prosthesis. He was counting the minutes until he could throw the eyepatch into the bin.

  “Yes, what is it?” he snapped, swinging the door open. A petite woman stood there with her back to the door, small shoulders set, hair pulled back into an elegant knot. She turned around and took him in.

  “Hello, Richard.”

  “Abbie.” Richard felt exposed, n
aked. He pulled his robe closer around himself. “What are you doing here?”

  Her brow quirked up. “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

  He stepped aside and motioned for her to come in. Her expensive, musky perfume trailed in her wake. It was the scent she always wore for their trysts, those wild mid-afternoon lovemaking sessions. His traitor body responded to the smell; he could feel himself getting hard as she walked in that slinky stride of hers, the black sheath dress she wore hugging the curves of her backside.

  Calm down, damn you!

  “Do you want a drink?” he asked as they came into one of the sitting rooms. Not the family room but one of the more formal rooms he sometimes used for meetings.

  She hesitated and then shook her head. “No, I’d rather not.”

  He leaned against the window. “Where’s Joe?”

  “Joe bit it.” She motioned with her head. “Over there.”

  “Drafted?”

  “Volunteered, if you can believe it.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I genuinely liked Joe.”

  She shrugged but seemed uncomfortable. “I know I was a brat to him, and I do regret that now. Maybe if I’d been a better charge, he wouldn’t have joined a war to get away from me. C’est la vie, eh?”

  “I suppose.”

  Abigail came closer, peered at his new scars, his patch.

  “Come to see the freak show?” he asked testily.

  She laughed. “You’re not as bad as all that.” She reached up and brushed his hair back from his face. It was an effort not to flinch at the touch. He hadn’t been touched like that since…he couldn’t quite recall. Her fingers traced the pattern of scars there. Richard felt a flush of heat behind his ears, at his wrists, across the back of his neck.